Congress gave a Human Rights Caucus and their desired targets of derision chose not to attend; that did not stop politicians from attacking Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft on their policies in China.
House Congressman Tom Lantos (D-Ca) arranged for invitations to the three big search engines and networking solutions company Cisco to attend the Human Rights Caucus on February 1st. In the wake of Google’s decision to debut a local site in China that would censor search results depending on certain government requirements, criticism of tech companies and their policies in China has been running at a fever pitch.
Sensing that the Caucus would simply provide politicians and activists a platform to personally attack whoever they sent, all four companies extended their regrets and sent no one to Washington, DC. That went over poorly with Lantos, who did not accept the “short notice” argument given by the search companies, according to News.com:
“With all their power and influence, wealth and high visibility, they neglected to commit to the kind of positive action that human rights activists in China take every day…They caved in to Beijing’s demands for the sake of profits, or whatever else they choose to call it.”
Statements jointly issued by Microsoft and Yahoo echoed that of Google’s call for the government to do more about China. Google senior policy counsel Andrew McLaughlin blogged his company’s position ahead of the Caucus:
…there is an important role for the United States government to address, in the context of its bilateral government-to-government relationships, the larger issues of free expression and open communication. For example, as a U.S.-based company that deals primarily in information, we have urged the United States government to treat censorship as a barrier to trade.
The search companies will likely send representatives to DC for a February 15th hearing held by the House International Relations Committee. Cisco and Yahoo have previously noted they will attend. The Committee does have subpoena powers, which it could use if Microsoft or Google prove unwilling to commit to attending on the 15th.
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David Utter is a staff writer for Murdok covering technology and business.
